Developing intelligent persuasive conversational agents to change people's opinions and actions for social good is the frontier in advancing the ethical development of automated dialogue systems. To do so, the first step is to understand the intricate organization of strategic disclosures and appeals employed in human persuasion conversations. We designed an online persuasion task where one participant was asked to persuade the other to donate to a specific charity. We collected a large dataset with 1,017 dialogues and annotated emerging persuasion strategies from a subset. Based on the annotation, we built a baseline classifier with context information and sentence-level features to predict the 10 persuasion strategies used in the corpus. Furthermore, to develop an understanding of personalized persuasion processes, we analyzed the relationships between individuals' demographic and psychological backgrounds including personality, morality, value systems, and their willingness for donation. Then, we analyzed which types of persuasion strategies led to a greater amount of donation depending on the individuals' personal backgrounds. This work lays the ground for developing a personalized persuasive dialogue system. 1

To identify what features of online social networks can increase physical activity, we conducted a 4-arm randomized controlled trial in 2014 in Philadelphia, PA. Students (n = 790, mean age = 25.2) at an university were randomly assigned to one of four conditions composed of either supportive or competitive relationships and either with individual or team incentives for attending exercise classes. The social comparison condition placed participants into 6-person competitive networks with individual incentives. The social support condition placed participants into 6-person teams with team incentives. The combined condition with both supportive and competitive relationships placed participants into 6-person teams, where participants could compare their team's performance to 5 other teams' performances. The control condition only allowed participants to attend classes with individual incentives. Rewards were based on the total number of classes attended by an individual, or the average number of classes attended by the members of a team. The outcome was the number of classes that participants attended. Data were analyzed using multilevel models in 2014. The mean attendance numbers per week were 35.7, 38.5, 20.3, and 16.8 in the social comparison, the combined, the control, and the social support conditions. Attendance numbers were 90% higher in the social comparison and the combined conditions (mean = 1.9, SE = 0.2) in contrast to the two conditions without comparison (mean = 1.0, SE = 0.2) (p = 0.003). Social comparison was more effective for increasing physical activity than social support and its effects did not depend on individual or team incentives.

Objective: To identify what features of social media – promotional messaging or peer networks – can increase physical activity. Method: A 13-week social media-based exercise program was conducted at a large Northeastern university in Philadelphia, PA. In a randomized controlled trial, 217 graduate students from the University were randomized to three conditions: a control condition with a basic online program for enrolling in weekly exercise classes led by instructors of the University for 13 weeks, a media condition that supplemented the basic program with weekly online promotional media messages that encourage physical activity, and a social condition that replaced the media content with an online network of four to six anonymous peers composed of other participants of the program, in which each participant was able to see their peers' progress in enrolling in classes. The primary outcome was the number of enrollments in exercise classes, and the secondary outcomes were self-reported physical activities. Data were collected in 2014. Results: Participants enrolled in 5.5 classes on average. Compared with enrollment in the control condition (mean = 4.5), promotional messages moderately increased enrollment (mean = 5.7, p = 0.08), while anonymous social networks significantly increased enrollment (mean = 6.3, p = 0.02). By the end of the program, participants in the social condition reported exercising moderately for an additional 1.6 days each week compared with the baseline, which was significantly more than an additional 0.8 days in the control condition. Conclusion: Social influence from anonymous online peers was more successful than promotional messages for improving physical activity. Clinical Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02267369.

In this review, we discuss effects of quantum gravity on black hole physics. After a brief review of the origin of the minimal observable length from various quantum gravity theories, we present the tunneling method. To incorporate quantum gravity effects, we modify the Klein-Gordon equation and Dirac equation by the modified fundamental commutation relations. Then we use the modified equations to discuss the tunneling radiation of scalar particles and fermions. The corrected Hawking temperatures are related to the quantum numbers of the emitted particles. Quantum gravity corrections slow down the increase of the temperatures. The remnants are observed as M Res. The mass is quantized by the modified Wheeler-DeWitt equation and is proportional to n in quantum gravity regime. The thermodynamical property of the black hole is studied by the influence of quantum gravity effects.

BackgroundImproving utilization of antenatal care is a critical strategy for achieving China’s Millennium Development Goal of decreasing the maternal mortality ratio (MMR). While overall utilization has increased recently in China, an urban vs. rural disparity in access remains. Here we aim to assess utilization of antenatal care in rural-to-urban migrant women and identify its risk and protective factors.MethodsMigrant women who had been living in Shanghai for more than six months, delivered in one of the two study hospitals between August 2009 and February 2010, and provided written consent were interviewed using a structured questionnaire.ResultsOf 767 women, 90.1% (691) made at least one antenatal care visit, while 49.7% (381) had adequately utilized antenatal care (i.e., made five or more antenatal care visits). Only 19.7% of women visited an antenatal care center during the first trimester (12 weeks). Women between the ages of 25 and 30 and women older than 30 were more likely than younger women to have adequately utilized antenatal care (AOR=2.2 and 1.9, 95%CI=1.4-3.5 and 1.1-3.2, respectively). Women whose husbands held Shanghai residency status (AOR=4.9, 95%CI=2.2-10.9) or who had more than 10 years of education (AOR=1.8, 95%CI=1.2-2.9), previously experienced a miscarriage or abortion (AOR=2.2, 95%CI=1.3-3.8), had higher household income (AOR=1.6, 95%CI=1.0-2.5) were more likely to have adequately utilized antenatal care. Women from high-income households were also more likely to receive antenatal care during the first 12 weeks (AOR=3.5, 95%CI=1.7-5.5).ConclusionsMany migrant women in Shanghai did not receive adequate antenatal care and initiated antenatal care later than the optimal first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Poor antenatal care utilization was associated with low socioeconomic status, education, and certain demographic factors. Tailored health education for both migrant women and their husbands should be strengthened to improve maternal health. Financing supports should be provided to improve the utilization of antenatal care.